


All This For a Damn, er, Darn Sale

by BuckinghamAlice



Series: Spending Holidays with the SuperBats [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Black Friday, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Male Bonding, Shopping, the holidays continue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 22:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckinghamAlice/pseuds/BuckinghamAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Jason goes Black Friday shopping with Clark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All This For a Damn, er, Darn Sale

**Author's Note:**

> So the last couple of holiday fics take place in this really happy domestic place, so I wanted this one to be before things are even remotely settled between Clark and Bruce. The relationship isn't actually a huge part of this though... but I tagged them as the pairing anyways because this is definitely SuperBat.

Several years ago.

  
“Clark, can I ask you a favor?” came Bruce’s voice on the other end of the phone line. Clark was standing in his kitchen, a dish towel thrown across his shoulder. Bruce asking him for a favor was… strange to say the least. Bruce didn't like to be beholden to anyone, and he certainly didn't like for Clark to have any sort of upper hand on him.

“Um, sure,” Clark replied uneasily.

“It’s a big favor,” Bruce continued. “A favor with a big mouth and the tendency to be a little bit of a smartass…”

Clark smiled. “You want me to take Jason off your hands?”

Bruce hesitated. “It sounds bad when you put it that way. But, yes. I was invited to spend Thanksgiving with Veronica Vreeland and he doesn’t want to go with me. Dick is spending the holiday with Barbara and Jim Gordon… and if Jason is out of the way, I can give Alfred the day off. If it isn’t too much of an imposition…”

This felt like a big deal. Clark loved Jason… though he didn’t have quite the relationship with him as he had with Dick. But when you’re involved with a person with children, if you could call the relationship he had with Bruce being “involved,” you should go out of your way to spend time with the kids, make friends with them. And he wanted to do that.

So of course he said, “Jason is welcome here anytime. My parents are going to be here… but I’m sure they’d love to spend time with him.”

So it was that Jason came to Metropolis to spend Thanksgiving with the Kents.

After one of Martha Kent’s beautiful Thanksgiving dinners, Jason was sitting on the couch next to Jonathan, watching football when Clark announced, “You might want to go and have a nap soon.”

Jason arched an eyebrow and turned to ask him, “Why? I’m not tired…”

“Well, I thought you might like to go to the Black Friday sales with me,” Clark answered with a smile.

Jason looked incredulous. “You _actually_ go in for those damn sales? And I meant darn… sorry.”

Clark smiled. “Some of us are on a budget but still like to buy nice presents for the people we care about. I thought you might want to look for something for Bruce.”

Jason frowned. “Well… I wasn’t really going to get him anything, I mean, what do you get a guy who can buy whatever he wants for himself?”

“I don’t suppose he’ll care what you get him as long as it’s from you,” Clark said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You know what they say. It’s the thought that counts.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason grumbled, crossing his arms. “I’ll go to your stupid sales with you… but I’ve got allowance so I can pay for my own stuff. No charity.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Clark said with a smile.

Then, wrinkling his little nose, he added, “And if I get trampled to death by a bunch of crazy bit—I mean, women on a bargain hunt, I hope you can explain that to Bruce.”

Clark shook his head. “I’ll find a way, I’m sure.”

Jason went to take his nap because the two of them would have to leave at just before 4 AM to catch all the “good bargains.” Somehow, being awake at 4 AM because you were on patrol was one thing, but waking up at that time to go shopping seemed… insane. But Bruce had warned Jason to be on his best behavior and not to give Clark or his parents attitude, so he had agreed.

When they left Clark’s apartment, it was still dark as pitch out. Jason had to wear a warm shirt, a thick sweater, and his coat to stay warm, and Clark lent him a scarf and hat just in case. There weren’t many cabs out, so they had to walk the four blocks to downtown Metropolis, where the big department stores were. And they saw the crowds from a mile away.

“Um… are you sure the sales are going to be worth it?” Jason asked, wrinkling his nose and glancing up at Clark. Just then, two women pushed past them on the street and Jason grabbed hold of Clark’s sleeve.

“Sure it will, Jay,” Clark replied. “This will be fun, I promise. But if you hate it when we get in there, hey, we’re gone.”

They went and joined the other shoppers lined up outside the store. “Now, when we get inside, I’m going to find this sewing machine that’s on sale for my mother. And then I thought we might go to the appliances… we’ll be able to find something for Alfred there. And then we could hit menswear and maybe electronics… and we’ll stop off at the toy department on our way out. How does that sound?”

“Um, sure,” Jason said, slightly apprehensive. As he looked around at the huge crowd he held tighter to Clark’s sleeve. He was _really_ glad he was there with Superman.

When the doors to the store opened, people began to rush inside like a stampede. Jason stuck beside Clark as they made their way inside and to the escalator. They went up to the second floor and made their way to the area with the sewing machines. There was a swarm of shoppers around the stack of boxes of the model that was on sale for sixty percent off.

“Hey, I got an idea,” Jason said. “Give me a boost.” Clark lifted Jason up over the heads of the people around them and he grabbed one of the boxes off the top of the stack. Clark lowered him to the ground and gave him a high five.

Next they made their way to the kitchenware and appliances and Jason found a gadget that he had seen on television that claimed it would dice, peel, or Julienne a potato in under ten seconds and save hours on kitchen work. Clark got him a new mixer because he remembered hearing him complain about the one he had.

The menswear department provided a sweater and a tie for Jonathan, a leather jacket for Dick, and a smoking jacket for Perry. Jason also found a scarf for Dick and some very nice gloves to go with it. Clark found a pair of cufflinks that were the exact same shade of blue as Bruce’s eyes. Jason laughed.

“What?” Clark had asked. “You don’t think he’d like them? Or is it… too much?” He frowned. He never knew what to give Bruce anymore, now that they were sort of together. He didn’t want to be presumptuous and give something that seemed too intimate, but he didn’t want to give him a friendly type gift. There was a fine line with Bruce.

“It’s not that,” Jason replied. “I just… I shouldn’t tell you this, but he’s giving you cufflinks. Just like that. You two think a lot alike.”

Now it was Clark’s turn to laugh. “No one has ever said that about us. And you’re right… you shouldn’t have told me.” Clark nudged him with his elbow. “But I don’t suppose I can give these to him now… he wouldn’t believe that it was a coincidence.”

Jason shrugged. “He’s got a lot of cufflinks anyways.”

“You’re right,” Clark sighed. “He’s always the hardest to shop for, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed. “But maybe there will be something in the electronics department for him.”

Clark nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go then.”

They headed over to the electronics department, and if they had though it was crowded over by the sewing machines, that was nothing compared to what they were seeing now. The only time Clark had seen such a crowd was when he had flown over Disneyland during the summer.

“Okay, try and stick close to me,” Clark said. Jason nodded and grabbed his sleeve again.

They went into the crowd and were almost immediately separated. Jason panicked when he couldn’t see Clark, because it wasn’t easy for someone so tall to get lost in a crowd, but he had.

“Cl-Clark?” he called.

Clark hadn’t noticed that Jason had gotten swept into the crowd until he felt that the little hand was no longer gripping his sleeve. He turned and saw him several rows over and heard his panicked little cry. He made his way over to the boy as quickly as he could and swept him off the ground and onto his back.

“Piggyback shopping?” Jason asked.

Clark smiled up at the boy. “It’s worth a shot, right? It’s better than me losing you in this crazy crowd.”

Clark found a CD player for Lois and a couple of video games for Jimmy. But still they had found nothing for Bruce. They were about ready to call it a loss when Jason saw a DVD player that recorded shows off of television onto a blank disc.

“Wow,” he sighed. “That’s neat. That’s what I’d give Bruce if I could.”

Clark looked at it, and even though it was on sale, it was still out of the boy’s price range. But he couldn’t let him leave the store disappointed. “Do you think we could go in on it together?” he asked. “I mean, since neither of us has any other ideas of what to get Bruce… and you’re right… he’d love this.”

Jason started to protest, but he understood Clark’s gesture… and it meant a lot to him. “Sure, Clark. That’s… a great idea. Thanks.”

Their final stop was the toy department. Jason had protested that, at twelve years old, he was too old for toys, but when they had gotten to the aisle with the action figures and remote control cars, he squirmed off of Clark’s back and looked excitedly at everything he saw.

Clark smiled at the sight of the boy looking like more of a child than he had in the entire time he had known him. “Hey, Jay… what do you want for Christmas more than anything?”

“This,” Jason said wistfully, pointing at a set of Hot Wheels with an elaborate race track. “But I won’t get it… Bruce only gives practical presents.”

Clark grinned and picked up the box. “Well, I don’t believe in practical presents.” Jason’s eyes lit up and he hugged Clark around the waist.

“Really?” he asked. “Thank you!” Clark smiled down at the boy and patted his shoulder.

“Okay, kid,” Clark said after a moment. “Let’s hit the register.” And that proved to be almost more of an ordeal than the actual shopping had been. They waited ages for a register to become available, Jason shifting his weight from one foot to the other. At one point, Clark hoisted him onto his shoulders, but he got bored up there soon and asked to be let down.

By the time they had made it to the register, Jason had climbed into the shopping cart and was about to fall asleep under Jonathan Kent’s Christmas sweater.

By the time they had left the store, the sun was up and cabs were crawling the streets, just waiting for people like them, weighed down with packages and desperate not to have to walk the crowded streets.

When they got back to Clark’s apartment building, they trudged up the stairs, Clark carrying the packages and Jason trying not to fall asleep on his feet. The boy fell onto the couch and went right to sleep, though the Kents bustled about around him.

Close to noon, Bruce showed up to pick him up. Clark had already put all their purchases away in the closet, so when Bruce came in and found the boy curled up on the couch, he wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the sight of him with his little nose peeping over the top of one of Martha’s quilts or be concerned at the sight of him practically passed out at almost noon.

“What did you _do_ to him?” Bruce asked.

Clark shrugged. “We went shopping.”

Bruce tried not to laugh. “You didn’t! You took him out on Black Friday?”

“He was safe and he had a great time,” Clark defended.

Jason started to stir then and smiled when he saw Bruce standing there. “Hey,” he said sleepily.

“Get your stuff, Jay,” Bruce said softly. “We need to get home.” The boy nodded and went and grabbed all of his things. Before they left, he hugged Ma and Pa Kent and gave Clark a big squeeze.

“Thanks for everything, Clark,” he said. Clark squeezed the boy back and lifted him into the air so his feet dangled. When he let him down he smiled and ran out of the apartment.

Bruce waited until the boy was standing in the hallway to pull Clark into a long slow kiss. Clark smiled and asked, “What was that for?”

“For everything,” he replied with a smirk.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't going to do a Black Friday story, but my lovely friend McDannoIsaNagron suggested it and it was just too fun a concept not to roll with it. And once the idea of Clark taking Jason shopping came to me this kinda sprang fully formed because I had never written the two of them bonding before. Now I literally wrote this in two hours on the high of completing NaNo while watching the Thanksgiving parade, so its probably even more chock full of mistakes and crap than usual -- my apologies.


End file.
